The programs being performed on Olympic ice are meticulously created and crafted over a period that can last months – or years. We break down the process.
8 minBy Nick McCarvel
Figure Skating
The booming announcement is nearly the same for every figure skater at the Olympics, a voice erupts that over the loudspeaker as the athlete glides to centre ice:
“Representing Japan... please welcome... Higuchi Wakaba!”
It marks the culmination of so much: Of a lifetime of hard work on the ice and off of it; but also of the months-long process that each program goes through to be ready to be performed in front of a panel of Olympic judges – not to mention the whole world watching at home.
“The building of a figure skating program is not one size fits all,” said 2014 Olympic ice dance champion Meryl Davis, an Olympics.com contributor. “Some athletes have lists of music they've been ready to pull from season to season depending on what feels right at the time. Some have long-term choreographic partnerships, and others still try new creative teams every year."
"I think one thing is certain across the board, though: You want to have your formula set and ready to go by an Olympic year. You want to feel confident in your creative team and your material when the time comes to skate across the Olympic rings.”
Here, an understanding of the work that goes in – and the time it takes – to be ready for the whole world to see a skater’s Olympic moment at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022.
First: Choosing your programs – and music
The Olympics are only nine or 10 months away. “Only?” Yes – only! Typically, most skaters choose their programs and music following the previous season’s World Championships, which are held each year in late March. Starting in April, May or early June, skaters will decide on what they’d like to showcase in the coming season before a summer of hard work.
Sometimes, however, that process can begin much earlier, too.
“Charlie [White, Davis’ partner] and I had selected our free dance music for the 2014 season in the summer of 2012, knowing that we wanted to save Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade” for our Olympic moment in Sochi,” she said. “We began prepping elements knowing that new lifts specifically could take more than one season to master.”
Across the four disciplines, two programs are skated: The short program (or rhythm dance) and the free skate (or free dance). Normally, a skater or team uses a new program – set to music they haven’t used before with bespoke choreography – in the Olympic season, but it’s not uncommon for previously used programs to make their way onto Olympic ice (see below).
It’s arguably the most important step, though skaters can and do change programs mid-season, even before the Olympics.
"You’re starting over from scratch in terms of creative material music while not knowing how it's going to come across,” Davis explained of choosing a new program. “And you know, is it going to be the vehicle you need for those Olympic moments? Athletes are keeping all of that in mind.”
Once the music for the program is set, it’s onto the choreography.
Second: Choreography
There are seven or eight months to go until the Games and it’s time to get creative with a chosen choreographer. The job of a choreographer – along with the skater or team and their coach(es) – is to set about planning the look, feel and incorporation of required elements for the program, paying particular attention to the music choice.
In the recent past, skaters have forged years-long partnerships with renowned choreographers to – they hope – bring out their best, no matter the program. For three-time world champion Nathan Chen that’s been Olympic ice dancers Shae-Lynn Bourne and Marie-France Dubreuil.
Two-time Olympic champion Hanyu Yuzuru? He also works with Bourne, but has used Torino 2006 bronze medallist Jeffrey Buttle for his short program choreography for years.
After the 2014 Olympics, the International Skating Union introduced music with lyrics across all four disciplines, broadening the possibilities for skaters and teams in terms of music choices and choreography.
The work is both artistic and technical: How do you draw an audience in while also racking up as many points as possible? All while doing the most difficult elements that you attempt... and making it all look seamless in nature.
“I think this is where the real work of putting a new program together for athletes usually comes in,” said Davis of the choreographic process.
Third: Feedback, fine-tuning and competition
As the six-month mark hits, programs are often set but not fully baked. Many countries hold high performance camps or domestic pseudo-competitions that allow skaters to get feedback from the judges from their country as well as from others in the coaching realm.
No detail is left untouched, Davis noted: "Charlie and I recruited ballet and ballroom experts and other dance specialists to help us put movement combinations together” to maximize the program, she said.
The ISU’s Challenger Series level of events gets underway in mid-September, and by 1 October most skaters or teams have been to one or two small competitions already, using the audience and the judging panel as their feedback: What worked and what didn’t?
Fourth: Building a program to be Olympic-ready
With four or five months to go until the Olympics, the showcase events are underway – the Grand Prix Series – and the feedback loop doesn’t stop. It actually gets more intense.
While costumes are normally chosen in the months leading up to competition, new ones can appear with the same program to give it a different feel.
This is also the time when repetition becomes immensely important: not only for the programs to feel as full as possible, but also for the skaters to be fine-tuning their technical elements that are so important for their scores: Quadruple and triple jumps; spins; throws and twists in pairs; and intricate lifts in ice dance.
It can also be the time when a program is scrapped and new material is introduced – or old programs brought back to life. This season, Chen – after two Grand Prix appearances – chose to return (at least for the time being) to two programs he had used during the 2019-20 season, which was cut short by the pandemic.
Reigning world champion Anna Shcherbakova re-did her short program mid-season. American Karen Chen opted to go back to an old short program after her Grand Prix events, too.
When national championship events that serve as final Olympic qualifiers are held in December and January, skaters are near to their peak. They have built the foundation and are now looking to make things pop, shine and connect to the audience.
Sidebar: Re-using past programs
It’s important to note – especially as the Covid-19 pandemic has interrupted each of the last three seasons in one way or another – re-used programs are as prominent as ever as skaters navigated difficult training conditions and at times a challenge to train or practice.
“I think any time an athlete has a program that brings out the best side of them, one that is special and they think could potentially be a vehicle to achieve what they want – even if it's in the non-Olympic year – then applying that material to an Olympic season opens up this idea of, ‘Perhaps this is what I need to have that Olympic success that I'm looking for,’” said Davis.
She continued: “These athletes have potentially been working on Zoom with their choreographers or some sort of video chat. So I think from a creative standpoint, the possibilities have been more limited in these last two seasons leading into the Games.
"As an athlete, you want to leave no stone unturned, you want to make sure you are prepared in every single way. And I think that with some of the barriers that the athletes have faced in the last couple of seasons that are atypical, creating new material has been potentially more challenging than it has been in the past.”
China’s two-time world champion pairs team, Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, brought back their free skate from the 2016-17 world title season, “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”
Jason Brown, a two-time Olympian, decided in 2020 that he would use his short program – set to “Sinnerman” – for two seasons to fully grow into it. It’s become a cult hit among skating fans.
Finally: Skating across the Olympic rings
The Olympics have arrived. The idea: Programs have hit their peak, the result of ingredients be added, taken away, shifted and changed – all for the most perfect recipe possible.
In total, skaters will spend only about seven minutes on the ice competing during the Olympics. Just under three minutes in the short program and just over four in the free.
The sport is unforgiving: Be as close to perfect, or else. But the appreciation for the craft only makes what they do even more awe-inspiring. They’ve spent months and months working on every second of what you’re seeing – and years before that building the skills to be able to do so.
Then comes the PA announcer again: “And the scores, please... “
